


The Five (other) Doctors

by shella688



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen, Locked in a Room Togther, Paradoxes galore, because you cant prove otherwise, eleven has been in day of the doctor and so is with clara, nine has met jack but idk the exact time, ten is with donna and has been in day of the doctor, the laws of time and canon are mine and they will obey me!, thirteen is at the end of the series 11, twelve is with bill but remebers day of the doctor and clara because i said so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-07-28 13:37:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20064895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shella688/pseuds/shella688
Summary: The Doctor has found herself locked in a cell with four others, all the while coming to the realisation that she is technically alone.





	1. Prologue

Thirteen was having far too much fun singing along to ABBA.

It was Yaz's fault, really. Thirteen had never been a huge pop music fan but then Yaz came along with those puppy-dog eyes saying _please, Doctor, it's good music, honest_ and it wasn't like she could say no - not to _Yaz_ \- and it had all gone downhill from there and now Thirteen was the proud owner of signed first copies of all their albums and one of Agnetha's jackets.

_i don't know how_  
_but i suddenly lose control_

It was a good job that the fam were otherwise engaged, really. Thirteen may have gotten over the embaressment whilst dancing she had when she still wore leather jackets, but this was... exuberant... to say the least.

(The drunk giraffe isn't merely a dance move, it's something you _are_)

But then all of a sudden, she stopped.

Something was happening.

"Aw, I was enjoying that music!" Thirteen moaned, as one hand started to itch, then gradually to vanish.

"Cheap transmats," she muttered as the rest of her faded away. "Forgotten how much I hated them."

_mamma mia_  
_here we go again_


	2. The Doctor, the Master and Threats Oh My!

She awoke in a room that looked suspiciously like the cell of a Mediaeval dungeon. Only problem was, all her Time Lord senses were telling her she was firmly in the 51st century, and not on Earth at that.

Her back was against a hard brick wall that seemed to curve, she was sat on a stone floor that was surprisingly warm, and the lone torch in the centre didn't so much as illuminate the room as make the darkness more yellow.

As her eyes adjusted to the dark, Thirteen took stock of the situation.  
No apparent injuries? Check.  
Tardis? Hopefully the same place as before.  
Sonic? She patted her pockets in turn. Ah - there it was.

Wait -

Her hands were unbound.

Well, that was a pleasant surprise.

Thirteen suddenly realised there were no bindings, or chains of any sort holding her to the wall or floor. What's more, her sonic screwdriver could get her out of nearly any cage a kidnapper would deign to put her in.

"Bit of a naff dungeon, this," she said, mostly to hear some sort of sound than for want of a reply. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, yes, but she still couldn't fully make out any details of the opposite stretch of wall.

So it was just a bit of a shock when:  
"Who's there?" asked a northern voice to her left.

She was about to respond, but paused. There was something oddly _familiar_ about that voice. Thirteen was sure she'd never heard it before, not exactly, but then...

But then they did always say you never heard your voice properly, vibrating through the skull as it does. And the more Thirteen tried to remember all those centuries ago, the more sure she was that the voice would belong to a man with close-cropped hair, a large nose, and a penchant for leather jackets.

Oh.

This train of thought was brought to a sharp halt as the torch blazed in a way fire really shouldn't. When Thirteen's eyes had adjusted _again_, a huge head bearing a familiar face had been projected by it into the room.

Not one of her faces this time though. Someone very different.

The Master.

But not the one this face knew best. This Master had dark hair, slicked back, and a large moustache that merged with a small beard. She hadn't seen this Master for a very, very long time.

"Still going through your James Bond villain stage then, eh?" she asked, quietly.

"Oi shush, I need to hear what he's saying," said the same man as before. In the new light, Thirteen's suspicions were confirmed. This was, if she had her timelines right, her ninth face.

"No look - this is clearly a a pre-recorded message. He can't see us at all," someone to her right was saying in a heavily Scottish accent.

_Oh_.

"Shut it!" said the first man - Nine.

"So nice to see you again, Doctor," said the Master grandly. It was a shame this projection only showed his head; he spoke with the kind of voice that is best accompanied by bold, sweeping gestures of the hand.

"I see you and your little _companion_ have fallen into my trap. If you ever wish to see her again, you must follow what I say _very_ closely. Or else..."

The Master was still talking, but Thirteen had stopped listening. It was a skill she had practised lots over her lives.

Looking around the now well-lit room, she could see five very familiar faces. Four excluding the projection. Her head ached as her brain tried to fit together the knowledge that _I remember this it's happened before I sat over there and there and there too_ with _well this is new_.

She really hated paradoxes.

With all the noise in her head, she couldn't accurately date when the others were from.

But the men themselves? She knew _them_, knew their personalities, all too well.

Nine, to her left, still reeling from the Time War and enough repressed memories to fill whole libraries.  
Sandshoes next to him; who remembered all too well. And that old sadness in his older eyes - he must have lost Rose by now too, if not recently. Then again, grief was hard to date.  
Bowtie, who forgot; playing at God. How close was he, she wondered, to the true death, with no hope of regeneration?  
And Scottish, to her right. Full of a whole new life, and finally staring to forgive himself.  
Thirteen realised she didn't mind not knowing what the other saw in her.

All of a sudden, the Master stopped talking. His holographic head, however, remained floating in the centre of the room. It was disconcerting, to say the least.

There was a pause before anyone realised they were free to speak again.

"I don't know how you lot know the Master, but you must know how dangerous he is." This was Nine, talking to the group. "Don't worry, I promise I'll get everyone out of here."

He paused.

(Did she _really_ use to be so dramatic?)

"I'm the Doctor."

This time, there was a longer pause. Eleven made a face and Twelve muttered something whilst looking intently around the room. But it was Thirteen who spoke.

"Yeah... We know."


	3. Spoilers

"Oh, so you've heard of me?" asked Nine. "Fantastic!"

He stood up, lurching forward as he realised there was nothing actually preventing his movement. In confusion, Nine inspected his wrists, then the floor where he was just sat, experiencing the same thought process Thirteen had been through just minutes before.

"Well give the man a prize!" This was Twelve, moving his eyebrows angrily like his life depended on it. Thirteen realised this was the first time she'd seen them as a third party, and made a mental note to be suitably impressed.  
"It's not like Blondie here figured out ages ago, and then _told_ the rest of us. Oh no. Because you over there, Baldy, just have to figure everything out for yourself. God, I'd forgotten how much of an idiot I used to be."

"Oi! I'm not bald! And at least I'm not dressed like a magician trying to be cool," protested Nine. The others looked at him expectantly, waiting for Twelve's final sentence to compute.   
"Oh..."

He surveyed each Doctor in turn, face growing more and more worried as he realised just how big of a paradox they were stuck in. Thirteen was struck by the thought that she and him were actually quite similar.

She didn't like to think about what that meant regarding how dramatic _she_ was.

"You're all me?"  
Thirteen nodded as the other man grinned.  
"Fantastic!"

"No, no, no, that doesn't work." This was Eleven. Oh, of course -

He didn't know yet. He still thought this was the end of the line for the Doctor.

Thirteen was about to say something when Eleven waved his hands for silence.

"Everybody shush. I'm thinking.  
"You over there, with enough repressed memories to fill a library."

(So _that's_ who she got it from.)

"You think you're number nine, but you're really number ten, you've just forgotten an entire face. Grandpa I called him. I - "

A look of confusion crossed Eleven's face, but he just steamrollered on past his problems.

(He didn't remember, Thirteen realised. He had absolutely no knowledge of the last time something oddly similar to this had happened.)

"No, shush, the adults are talking.  
"Sandshoes here regenerates but keeps the same face because of vanity issues - hey, shut it, honestly do you lot not know how to be quiet?

"So that should leave me as number thirteen. But then there's those two. And when I look into their eyes I see myself looking back - and I know you two do too.  
"So the question is: how?"

Thirteen and Twelve glanced at each other. How do you explain that the Time Lords, who - surprise! - aren't all dead, gave up their regeneration energy to help you live? And how do you do _that_ without messing up your personal timeline so badly the universe just collapses from the strain?

Twelve gave a small, dark smile.  
"Spoilers."


	4. How Not to Escape a Prison Cell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how many Masters there are and at this point I'm too afraid to ask

Eleven narrowed his eyes, but chose not to say anything.

Silence fell for a few minutes as the Doctors thought.

They were good at thinking, on the whole. Lock up the Doctor in a room on their own (true right now, technically) and they will start thinking up ways to get out of it faster than you could say Raxacoricofallapatorious. In fact, you would have only just managed to say Clom before Ten hopped to his feet.

"The door!"

The door?

Oh, that door.

She hadn't even noticed it before now - it was obscured by the projection of the Master's head that seemed to be refusing to go away. It looked big, solid, and very, very heavy.

And made of wood.

(God she _really_ needed to invent a setting for wood sometime soon.)

"Reverse the polarity of the lock? A classic, really," Ten continued, adjusting the settings on his screwdriver.

Eleven jumped up too, brandishing his sonic like he was going to help.

Twelve and Thirteen shared a Look. Clearly the other two didn't remember how well reversing the polarity had turned out the last time they'd tried together - but Thirteen did well enough. She most certainly did _not_ want to have to experience it again, embarrassing memories were fine thank you very much.

"Maybe you shouldn't -" she started.

"No, don't do this again. Because if _you_ Sandshoes reverse the polarity, then _you_ Chinny reverse it back, what do you think is going to happen?" Twelve looked close to beating his head against the wall in despair.

"They're not sandshoes!"  
"And what's wrong with my chin?"

Then they looked at each other - Thirteen dared to breathed a sigh of relief - and shrugged.

"Allons-y!" went Ten, under his breath.  
"Geronimo!" went Eleven, with no such qualms.

_whirrrrr-_  
_thud_  
_-rrrrrrr-_  
_thud_  
_-rrr_  
went the two sonic screwdrivers.

"Well, it was worth a shot," went Ten again, dragging out the 'e' like Thirteen had forgotten she used to do.

_thud_ went Twelve's head on the wall once more.

The Doctor is very good at ignoring people: up to and including future versions of themselves. It's a skill with its uses for sure.

Ten and Eleven started talking to each other, ignoring Twelve very well. It seemed to involve lots of waving around sonics, but was too quiet for Thirteen to make out. Twelve seemed to be brooding (a speciality of his, if she remembered correctly.) So, for lack of anyone else to talk to, she wandered over to Nine.

"We're missing something," he said immediately.

"What?"

"Were you listening to what he said? All of it?"

"'Course not," she replied. "I was figuring out you lot."

"Good because I wasn't either." He brought up a reading on his sonic. "We're in the future, right? Well see that torch? It's old, very old. It was probably new when this fellow -"  
He motioned at the Master.  
"- still had a bowl cut."

"So what's it still doing out here? Why not replace it?"

Thirteen nodded slowly. Some thoughts were coming together in her mind, but it was like doing a jigsaw with no edge pieces and no idea of the finished result.

"Right at the start, he said something," she began. "Something about the Doctor - singular. And a companion, a 'her' if I remember correctly."

Nine's eyes lit up in understanding.

"Yeah. Yeah?" She was moving now, pacing. "It all made perfect sense to you, still with Rose, eh? But there's five of us here."

All the Doctors were watching her now, sans conversations or beating heads against walls.

"So something's gone wrong hasn't it?  
"He wanted just one of us. But look at his face! A good, what?, four regenerations ago?"

"Four? What?" Ten.

"Yeah spoilers sorry." She waved a hand - the edge pieces were starting to appear in her mind.  
"I think this is a very old trap, one that should have been sprung a very long time ago.  
"I think it's was forgotten about, until the five of us got close enough to be sucked in."

She looked at the door.

"And I think something's going to happen.  
"Right about..."

The door creaked.

"...now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The laws of time and canon are mine and I'm not sure if Thirteen remembers the Day of the Doctor officially but she does here so...  
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	5. Interlude

To the unaware, time is a strict progression of cause to effect.

This is false.

Anyone who knows anything about time could tell you that's it's actually a big ball of weird ugly stuff that no-one likes to look at very much.

It wibbles when poked.

All this means that, though mere seconds would pass between the door creaking and it opening, time was able to contort and twist itself into something that seemed much longer.

In this nearly-section of almost-time, the Doctor's brain cycled through the available options.

They couldn't run. For a being that had spent most of their life running to, running from, running alongside, they were denied this one option.

(The universe is beautiful, but do not forget it is very, very cold)

They wouldn't fight. The Doctor isn't a soldier, regardless of what some of them think or say. Yes, they might make a good show of it: but that is not the truth that is written in their hearts.

(It's better to be a coward than a murderer)

So they waited, as time that didn't exist passed before them.

Hands gripped sonic screwdrivers.

Minds constructed speeches.

And five pairs of eyes hardly dared blink as...

The door creaked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing tips:  
Embrace your inner Victor Hugo and write a chapter kinda related to, but not directly impacting, the main storyline


	6. Why Can't I Be Ginger?

A woman marched into the room.  
A very angry woman.  
A very angry, _ginger_, woman .

There was a brief moment when she paused, as though she had expected resistance and was surprised when none came, but carried on regardless, with the unshakeable self-confidence of someone who has come prepared for a fight and will be damned if they don't get one.

Thirteen had seen her many times without the other knowing, of course. She could tell you where the other woman currently worked (school secretary), all about her husband (he showed no signs of being an alien yet) - even what her grandpa had eaten for lunch last Tuesday (chips and gravy; Thirteen, despite his protests, had paid).

But there is something very _different_ about seeing someone from your past, knowing exactly what will happen to them, and being unable to do anything at all to help.

So when Donna exclaimed "Doctor!" loudly and exuberantly, Thirteen had to try very hard not to respond.

"Oh my God Doctor you're still alive! 'Cause I was coming here past all these weird traps but they were all broken or something cause none of them cared about us lot. Bill reckons it's because we came from behind 'em but what kind of rubbish traps don't work backwards? Honestly it's like this place was built by a company with the budget of a packet of crisps and like how bad is that? I mean - this door was unlocked!"

Donna paused for a moment and looked around at the five Doctors and the Master's head, but she was off again before anyone got a chance to speak, though Ten certainly tried.

"You've got that floating head too? Well he was in our room - I think he thought there was only one of us, do you reckon he needs glasses?"

"Donna -"

"And he was all 'You're locked in here until the Doctor rescues you, but he won't, because I'm so evil ha ha' but I was all well I ain't bothered -"

"Donna."

"- and you're not locking _me_ in a room, sunshine -"

"Donna!"

She stopped, breathing heavily.

It was the fear, Thirteen suddenly realised. For all her big talk, Donna had been scared that maybe the Master had spoken true - that maybe the Doctor _was_ dead.

Ten grabbed her, and they hugged each other tightly. He was repeating something to her softly, and she was saying something back.

Finally, they broke apart and Ten spoke.

"Donna says the others are coming - Rose, Clara and Bill they are. They should be coming along soon, she said they had a plan of sorts."

He shifted awkwardly as Donna spun to glare at him.

"Well it was a... decent plan... given the time constraints," he mumbled.

Donna merely huffed and turned back around. She seemed to properly notice the existence of four other people in the room for the first time and studied at them, almost approvingly.

"Have you all travelled with the Doctor?" She grew solemn. "I guess it's good there's so many of us. I mean, he really doesn't do well on his own."

Nine was going to say something.

Thirteen could see with immense clarity that he was going to say something incredibly sarcastic and probably fairly stupid that would just ruin the whole mood and probably the timeline too.

So she elbowed him.

Hard.

"What was that for?" he complained quietly.

Not quietly enough, it seemed. Donna's attention focused on the two of them.

Nine she passed over, but when she saw Thirteen her face lit up.

"Oh Rose is gonna be well annoyed!  
"See I was talking to her, although she said she didn't remember me which is weird, like imagine forgetting you ever met someone and all that stuff you did with them! Anyway I told her how I was talking to Martha one time who had talked to Jack and _he_ said that the Doctor has a thing for blondes. Rose, and so did Clara too actually, said that was ridiculous no he didn't but since you're here too it means they can't deny it anymore!"

'Flabbergasted' is a brilliant word that manages to convey exactly how Thirteen felt after that speech in a mere four syllables.

There was a brief awkward pause that Donna seemed unaware of, before the door burst open again.

"I've got laser shooter and I'm not afraid to use it!" shouted Bill, badly misreading the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I miss Donna :(


	7. We're All In This Together

No-one got shot.

Twelve managed to convince Bill that _no, you really don't need to point that at anyone in here_ and it had been left leaning against the wall.

Introductions had been made and everyone was getting along, more or less. Donna had apologised for much of her earlier speech, but still stood by the bit about blondes. Thirteen had overhead Clara tell Eleven how she kept expecting another Doctor to be there, although she didn't know who, and of course neither did he.

Thirteen knew; her and Twelve remembered.

Right now, she was fiddling with the torch, scanning it with her sonic and hoping to find anything, really. She very deliberately ignored Eleven's eyes staring at her back.

She had no-one with her, not like her past regenerations, and she knew how that would seem to him. In a way, it was good that the fam weren't here - Ryan and Donna would get along far too well.

"Doctor?" asked a voice right near her shoulder.

"Yeah?" Thirteen really didn't want to be rude, but she was _so close_ to figuring out what was up with all this outdated tech. She glanced over to see Bill hovering nearby.

"You're really pretty," Bill blurted.

"You what?" Something had _ding_ed on her sonic and that was currently occupying all her attention.

"Well - I think you're pretty - erm - smart. I mean, you're concentrating really hard over here whilst the rest of us are all chatting."

Thirteen let out a groan of frustration as her sonic helpfully informed her that there was nothing unusual about this torch other than its age.

"Sorry about that," she said, turning to Bill whilst trying very hard not to kick the torch to see what would happen. "What were you saying?"

"Oh - er - nothing much. Don't worry about it." Bill give a quick, nervous smile; Thirteen responded by grinning widely, before looking back at her sonic.

She whacked it a few times but the readings remained irritatingly normal.

Well, as normal as you can get when five of the same person are in a room together.

"That's not how Tardises work!" someone shouted, snapping her out of her thoughts.

"Maybe it's not how _your_ boring, old, Tardis works, but _mine_ is clearly better and so it does!" someone shouted back.

Thirteen looked over to see Eleven and Twelve arguing. Everyone else seemed to be watching too, with very levels of interest and embaressment.

"No! It's completely ridiculous! You can't just press a button and have her show up like a bad magic trick - regardless of how new she is!" Eleven looked like he'd been personally insulted.

"Well, it's less ridiculous than that bow tie," said Twelve, as Eleven straightened it protectively.

"Actually you can do that," Thirteen chimed in, ignoring the look of disgust on Eleven's face. "We all ready to get a shift on? Yep? Well watch this..."

She pressed a button on her sonic.

Nothing.

Frowning, she pressed another.

A familiar _vworp_ filled the room as the Tardis materialised around them. The torch fell down some newly appeared stairs with a clang - finally shutting off the projection of the Master's head. ABBA was still playing.

"Oh, you've redecorated?" asked Nine as he looked around.

"Yeah and if anyone says they don't like it they're getting left on the nearest asteroid."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bill's a gay disaster and I love her


	8. There And Back Again

Dropping everyone off at the correct Tardis was an adventure to say the least. Rose practically had to drag Nine away from her custard cream dispenser, and Eleven nearly flew off in Twelve's Tardis (it's not her fault they look so similar!), but by the end she was pretty sure everyone was back where they started.

More or less.

_yes, I've been brokenhearted_  
_blue since the day we parted_

Numbers had been exchanged, but she knew nothing would come of it.

They'd all forget soon, like nearly every other time multiple Doctors had the misfortune to meet each other.

Soon, but not yet.

Thirteen had found a long, old scarf from a past regeneration and had wound it around her neck so many times it was almost comical. Once again, she cursed her sudden shortness.

And maybe it was the scarf, or maybe it was the lingering effect of the paradox, but Thirteen was remembering.

Had they been in the Death Zone?

It certainly had enough traps. And it would explain they low-budget traps, and the clunky old tech, _and_ the Master still being stuck in his Bond villain phase.

Thirteen mused, pacing as she did so. All of a sudden, she spun round excitedly, like she was about to tell someone else her ideas. She hesitated - realising there was no-one there. For first time since the whole palaver had started, she felt lonely.

What were the rest of Team Tardis up to? she wondered. Would she interrupt something important, if she called?

_brrrrnnnnnng_

Ah - nevermind then.

Thirteen pressed a button, grinning as Graham's face appeared on the screen.

"Alright Doc? Me and Ryan were wondering if you fancied coming over for tea," he asked. "And nice scarf, by the way."

"That, Graham O'Brien," she replied, already flicking switches and pulling levers, "would be brilliant!"

• • •

And so Thirteen forgot.

_bye bye doesn't mean forever_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was my first fic with more than one chapter  
Thanks to all of you who stuck with it and especially everyone who left kudos and comments!


End file.
